[News] ADC-SF Statement on the Siege of Gaza

[Anti-Imperialist News]

Reply-To: adcsf-owner at yahoogroups.com



Stop the Siege of Gaza and Support the Palestinian People

We call upon all people of conscious to condemn and protest the 
escalating military attacks and economic terror being inflicted by 
<?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = 
"urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Israel on the 
Palestinian people.

Thousands of armed Israeli troops, supported by U.S. tax dollars, are 
amassed on the northern and southern borders of Gaza waiting to carry 
out another massacre of Palestinian men, women and children.

Israeli missiles have destroyed Gaza's main power plant and blocked 
shipments of fuel to operate four smaller facilities.  The people of 
Gaza, who have been surviving and resisting sustained Israeli 
military attacks, are now without clean drinking water, medicines, 
electricity and international relief groups warn that within three 
days there will be a severe humanitarian crisis.  On top of all this, 
sixty-four officials of the democratically elected Palestinian 
government have been illegally arrested by Israel. These efforts are 
aimed at ethnically cleansing Palestine of Palestinians.  Such 
collective punishment not only violates international and 
humanitarian law but clearly expose Israel's inherently racist nature.

In the past month, Israel has killed 28 Palestinians, 7 of which were 
children.   There has been no outrage over these state-sponsored 
murders.  While the names of the Palestinians killed will never be 
remembered or even known by most people in this country, the entire 
world is being made aware of one captured Israeli soldier. Mainstream 
media has been responsible for perpetuating a distorted, skewed 
version of the situation and it is our duty to raise our voices 
against this racism and injustice.

There is never symmetry between acts of an occupier and acts of 
people defending themselves.  Yet any act by Palestinians to resist 
occupation is condemned and attacks by Israel are portrayed as 
legitimate, especially by mainstream media in the US. Israeli lives 
are sacred while the lives of Palestinians worthless and not worth 
mentioning.  The racism that underlies mainstream media coverage of 
the situation is shocking and outrageous.

Organizations concerned about social justice in the US cannot keep 
quiet about the ethnic cleansing being carried out in Palestine.  We 
call on every organization and individual to take a stand against not 
just the latest Israeli atrocities but against all the crimes that 
Israel has committed against Palestinians with US arms and US 
acquiescence for over half a century.

We believe that through international pressure in the form of 
boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS), among other things, will 
Israel's apartheid state be challenged so that the legitimate rights 
of Palestinian can be realized.  Many organizations, churches and 
unions have started to embark on this strategy which brought down the 
apartheid state in South Africa.  In the near future, we hope to let 
people know how to more directly be engaged in these strategies at 
your schools, work and communities.

Lastly, we would like to register our strong disagreement with the 
June 28, 2006 press release sent out from the ADC National Office 
which implies some sort of symmetry and balance between Israeli 
belligerent actions and the Palestinians right to resist occupation. 
As we prepare to mobilize against the siege with friends and 
supporters of Palestine and community members including ADCSF 
members, we find the statement to be destructive to our mobilization 
efforts and inaccurate in its assumptions.  We hope our community and 
supporters will engage in campaigns and actions in the coming weeks 
to stop Israeli atrocities and support the Palestinian people.



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American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee
San Francisco Bay Area Chapter
522 Valencia St  San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 861-7444  adcsf at adcsf.org
www.adcsf.org


The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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